The Broad Estates of Death
by fewthistle
Summary: AU. Swan Queen. Sheriff Emma Swan faces the greatest challenge of her law-enforcement career: catching a possible serial killer in the sleepy town of Storybrooke. A series of murders in town force Emma and Mayor Regina Mills to team up to solve the crimes before another murder occurs. (Slow burn Swan Queen. Non-magic, AU). Some mention of violence and suicide: not graphic but there
1. Notes and Poem

Well, hello there! So, as some of you may know, I've been writing fanfic for eons-well, since 1999 anyway-in various fandoms, but this is my first foray into OUaT. I've read tons of SQ fic, but this is my first attempt at writing Emma and Regina, so please bear with me and let me know if my characterization is off. This is AU, so I hope that I have a little leeway. Still, I'd like to stay somewhat true to the original characterizations. Be kind?

I'll try to update on a reasonably regular schedule, but I'm working on my PhD, so can't make any firm promises. The depictions of violence are not overly graphic, but may trigger some people, so wanted to post the warning. There is a discussion of suicide in the first chapter, again, not graphic, but there. I'll make sure to add warnings to any other issues as chapters are posted.

Your face is like a chamber where a king

Dies of his wounds, untended and alone,

Stifling with courteous gesture the crude moan

That speaks too loud of mortal perishing,

Rising on elbow in the dark to sing

Some rhyme now out of season but well known

In days when banners in his face were blown

And every woman had a rose to fling.

I know that through your eyes which look on me

Who stand regarding you with pitiful breath,

You see beyond the moment's pause, you see

The sunny sky, the skimming bird beneath,

And, fronting on your windows hopelessly,

Black in the noon, the broad estates of Death.

Edna St. Vincent Millay


	2. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

The soft moonlight spread out over the landscape, casting the world awash in a bluish glow. The gold, red, and orange of the autumnal leaves, the fading green of the hillsides and meadows, all lay blanched and blurred, with only the brightest of hues evident, the colors muted and hazy against the unsubstantial backdrop.

In the far meadow of the Whittington's farm, the wide pasture pond mirrored the moon's pale image. The reflection was marred occasionally by the ripple of tiny tremors as the wind ghosted along the surface of the water. One enormous bull frog sat regally in the thick mud of the bank, his deep throated croaking a mournful dirge, until, with an effortless flexing of powerful legs, he leapt into the depths of the pond, sending crests of displaced water circling out towards the mired edges.

The rippling distortions were a minor consideration, however, when compared to the fair-haired figure that floated incongruously amid the cattails and ferns along the edge of the pond. Her white gown gleamed spectrally against the murky grey of the water, the light cotton of the fabric buoyed up by the waves against the shallow shore of the swimming hole. Hair the color of winter wheat, entangled in the fiddleheads and cattails, created a twisted seaweed, foreign and obscene.

A large maple rose up against the sky not far from the edge of the pond. Its leaves had been some of the first to flame to brilliant red, but now, as the days of autumn grew fewer, one by one the leaves had faded to brown and fallen, brittle and spent, to the ground below.

Against the luminescent light of the sky, the branches of the ancient tree stood out, dark and skeletal. With twisted limbs reaching in silent plea to the heavens, it stood quiet sentinel over the ghastly vision floating tranquilly among the rushes.

The bullfrog emerged at the other end of the pond, pulling himself lethargically out of the murky water to perch on the carpet of brittle leaves beneath the tree. With a lugubrious croak, he resumed his plaintive song, the sonorous tones mingling with the hypnotic slap of the water on the muddy bank, and the flapping of a sheet of white paper that fluttered against the pitted bark of the maple, tacked there with a small pin the color of blood.

**Chapter One**

"Dammit! Move your piece of crap cars out of my way now!" screamed a female voice from the window of a gray police cruiser, its blue lights flashing futilely, wedged as it was in the north-bound lane of Rte. 1, behind a long line of cars that crawled at a leisurely pace down the narrow road. "Do you people not have police where you live? Don't you know that you're supposed to yield to emergency vehicles?!"

The equally endless line of traffic coming towards them in the opposite direction made the idea of passing completely moot, as car after car with out of state plates rolled aimlessly down the winding route.

"God, I hate tourist season," groaned the sole occupant of the police car. "Are there no trees anywhere outside of New England? Don't you people have anything to look at in your own states?"

With a rather pitiful moan, Emma Swan, Sheriff of Storybrooke, Maine, lowered her head to the steering wheel, resigned to the fact that there was no way to get around the backlog of automobiles that littered the road ahead of her. The shoulder was barely wide enough for the myriad of bikes that found their way here every fall, health conscious tourists intent on seeing the foliage and slowing the already snail-like pace of their fellow "peepers".

It was mid-October and autumn colored the landscape. The cold waters of the Atlantic lay somewhere out beyond the curve of road, beyond the grey of rocky shore that melded into the darker grey of ocean. Here along Route 1 was the picture postcard world of Maine: red barns and scenic harbors; solemn churches, whitewashed and sparkling; quaint country stores, and tourist traps, all nestled among ancient trees. With the coming of October, all of New England was a offering upon the alter of a generous God.

To Emma Swan, the sight of thousands of tourists, cameras slung around their necks, wax paper and crayons in hand, were images more akin to hell than anything vaguely heavenly. From mid-September through Halloween, the leaf peepers descended upon the sleepy hills and towns of New England. They tied up every main artery, filled the hundreds of small, picturesque inns and B&B's to capacity.

They overran the outlet malls, the restaurants, and the stores, parking wherever they liked, their cars littering the roadsides stands. The one saving grace as far as most of the locals were concerned was that the dreaded peepers were also feeding much needed currency into the local economies, so that the money seemed to rain down like a shower of falling leaves on a blustery day.

To Emma's mind, however, right at the moment, the influx of cold, hard cash seemed little recompense for the interminable line of traffic that lay ahead of her. If she hadn't been in Portland when dispatch had contacted her, she would never have taken this route.

It was another six miles to the Storybrooke line, though thankfully there was a turnoff about a mile and half up the road. Granted the back roads would take her at least a couple miles out of her way, but compared to sitting behind twelve hundred leaf peepers, it seemed a small inconvenience.

_**"Emma, we've got a body up in Walter Whittington's pond. And it isn't one of the cows. It's a human body, a girl, Walter says. You want me to send a couple cars up there and secure the scene?" Ruby Lucas, one of her deputies, had informed her this morning, as Emma sat over a plate of chocolate-chip pancakes at a Portland diner.**_

_**"A body?" Emma had asked incredulously, her voice loud enough to turn the heads of the few locals ranged along the Formica counter. "Are you sure he said a human body?"**_

_**"I'm positive," Ruby had replied, just the slightest shift in her tone letting Emma know that she took umbrage at being doubted. "Walter said he isn't positive, but that he thinks it might be Michael Medford's daughter, Karen. He can't be sure cause she's floating face down in the pond, but he says that the body has the same long blonde hair. Weird thing is, Walter says that she's wearing a nightgown, all white and flowing."**_

_**"Walter finds the body of a young woman floating in his pasture pond and you two think the weird part is that she's wearing a nightgown?" Emma asked her disbelievingly.**_

_**"Well, Emma, you have to admit that it does seem a bit strange to be up in the far pasture in the middle of the night, in October, wearing nothing but a cotton nightgown," Ruby pronounced sagely, seemingly unaware of the ridiculousness of the statement.**_

_**"It seems even stranger to be up in the far pasture, in the middle of the night, in October, floating face down in Walter Whittington's pond, doesn't it, Ruby?" Emma asked in a loud whisper, exasperation in her voice as she hastily paid for her breakfast and tried to ignore the stares of the locals as they eavesdropped on her call.**_

_**"Well, now that you mention it….," Ruby admitted reluctantly.**_

_**"Just get two or three cars up there to secure the scene, alright?" Emma responded irritably, throwing the patrol car into reverse and making her way through downtown Portland.**_

_**"Yes, Ma'am," the dispatcher answered smartly, a salute almost carrying through the phone line. "Do you want me to let Mayor Mills know about the body?"**_

_**The thought of Storybrooke's brutally efficient and somewhat tyrannical mayor and her reaction to a suspicious death in her little kingdom elicited a deep, long-suffering sigh from the sheriff. Emma briefly contemplated shifting the burden of relaying the news to Ruby, but tamped down the thought with another ragged sigh. **_

"_**No. I'll call her myself, once I know what we're dealing with," the sheriff responded. "All I need is Regina Mills in three inch Louboutins tramping through a potential crime scene and giving orders."**_

"_**Gotcha, chief. I'll get the guys out there ASAP," Ruby promised, a note of sympathy in her voice.**_

With a groan of frustration, Emma hung up without responding, tossing the phone to the seat beside her, her mind only half-focused on her driving as she tried to make sense of the information that she had just received. Bad enough that she had a suspicious death on her watch. Having to deal with Regina was a delicate matter in the best of times; having to handle the mayor with the threat of bad publicity during the height of tourist season was enough to make Emma want to bang her head against the steering wheel until she passed out.

In her two years as Sheriff of Storybrooke, Maine, Emma Swan had been blessed with very little in the way of crime.

A few petty larcenies, a couple of kids caught shoplifting at the comic book store, and the occasional domestic dispute. No bodies, especially not ones that appeared mysteriously in someone's cow pond. Her constituents had thus far been most accommodating, either dying peacefully in their sleep, or conveniently making the trek to Storybrooke General Hospital before leaving this worldly existence.

It was a mutually beneficial arrangement, one which Emma had been quite content to have continue. She didn't have to investigate any murders, and the good citizens of her jurisdiction remained smug in their assertion that Storybrooke was one of the safest places to live in the whole country.

"Hopefully, she committed suicide," Emma muttered under her breath, guiltily caught between the desire for this to simply be the case of an unhappy teen, and the knowledge that a young girl's life had been cut tragically short. Unfortunately, it had been Emma's experience that things were seldom simple. She had a feeling of foreshadowing that whatever happened to this girl, it wouldn't be cut and dried.

With a now unpleasant sensation beginning to gnaw at the pit of her stomach, Emma headed north on Rte. 1, soon becoming tangled in the slow moving train of traffic that inched along the narrow road, edging forward no faster than molasses down a hillside in January.

The turnoff to the Old Storybrooke Road lay ahead about a quarter of a mile on the left. There hadn't been a single break in the traffic, well, at least not until an obliging Connecticut couple stopped their Lexus in mid-stream and emerged to take a series of photographs.

Their panorama of choice was a particularly fine example of white birch, its golden leaves arrayed against the brilliant red of an old barn, an abandoned shovel and hand plow leaning, worn and picturesque, alongside the barn door. The cacophony of horns and yells from irate drivers seemed to make little impression as the duo made their way back to their automobile at a leisurely pace.

"Damn flatlanders," Emma muttered, shaking her head at the gall it took to abandon a car in the middle of the lane and get out to pose for pictures. However, the gap that was left did provide her with the opportunity to make her turnoff, as she cut across the lanes in front of a large Winnebago with Pennsylvania plates.

Free at last of the backlog of cars, Emma sped down the spiraling secondary road, the tires appearing to barely hold the curves as the gray patrol car barreled down the country lane. The sedan flew along the corkscrew road as it wound its way around the mountain, trudging up steep inclines, rushing down roller coaster hills, only to climb again, racing through the dappled light that peered through the overhanging tree limbs. Brief, heart catching glimpses of a perfect autumn sky broke through the ribbons of color in the tapestry above, as Emma left small whirlwinds of fallen leaves in her wake, swirling in one last, tumultuous dance.

The Whittington's farm lay about four miles outside of town. Storybrooke was a typical coastal town, nestled between the wide, cold sea and the sloping spread of forest, field, and hill beyond.

The patrol car sped through the town, rounding the park and shooting off along Prospect St. The road ran almost the entire length of the county, lined with modest frame houses and eventually, open fields and wooded hillsides. Emma could see the faint flashing of blue lights as she crested the final hill, Walter Whittington's far pasture a swath of green between the kaleidoscope colors of the bluff rising up behind it and the sleek gray of the road.

The pond lay at a point about halfway across the now mucky pasture. Two barely discernible ruts of dirt ran along the edge of the meadow. Emma turned into the narrow path, the car jostling back and forth as the tires ratcheted down the washboard lanes, the soil eaten away by the heavy tread of Walter's tractor.

Two patrol cars, lights sending a whirling beacon of blue in all directions, sat alongside a battered pickup truck at the end of the lane closest to the pond. In the distance, grazing placidly on the crest of the next hill, Emma could see the grayish-brown hides of a herd of Jerseys. She stopped the sedan a good distance from the other vehicles. Stepping from her car, Emma ran her fingers through her blonde hair, the curls left more unruly than usual by the rush of air through the car window. Unconsciously straightening her shoulders, Emma made her way to where two of her deputies stood with an obviously fascinated farmer.

Treading carefully on the boggy ground, Emma moved with an unconscious grace. Despite her slim frame, there was an aura of strength that emanated from her, one which was only enhanced by the tan and dark brown of her uniform. Normally, Emma eschewed the formal attire of her office, preferring to work in jeans and a leather jacket, but her trip to Portland had required a token show of professionalism. Intelligent, intense green eyes stared out of an attractive, charming face, a few stray wrinkles belying the appearance of youth. Those eyes were now fixed on the angular form of Walter Whittington.

"Emma," Walter acknowledged, nodding his head briefly in greeting.

Emma nodded back, eyes quickly skimming the scene before returning to Walter's face. She had known him most of her life. He had been a couple of years ahead of her in high school. After graduation he had married a girl from a neighboring town and settled down to farm the land that his family had been working for the last century and a half.

As far as Emma knew, Walter had never been outside of Maine. She wasn't surprised that the body in his pond had evoked more curiosity than distress. Country people, farmers in particular, deal with death on a regular basis. Emma suspected that, to Walter, the fact that the body in his pond was human was simply incidental. To him, dead was just that, dead.

"Walter, I understand that we've got a situation here. Why don't you tell me about it?" Emma urged, intentionally standing with her back to the pond and the still figure floating along its surface.

"Yup. Don'tcha want to take a look at her? I already told the boys here what I know," the farmer answered, gesturing to the two deputies.

The men seemed unsure of what to do, awkward in their uniforms, feet shuffling a bit in the thick pasture grass, the moisture from the ground beading on their heavy black shoes, stray pieces of dried grass adhering to sides and soles. Their eyes made a slow, uncertain triangle, moving from the face of the Sheriff to that of the farmer, the trinity complete with a furtive glance at the white clad shape that drifted in the murky water.

"I'll get to the body in a minute. Harsh as it may sound, she isn't going anywhere, but I'm sure that you have a good deal of work to do. I know you already told the boys everything you know, but I want to hear it first-hand from you, Walter, ok?" Emma answered quietly.

"Well, I do have a bit of work to do. As I told the fellas, I drove the herd over here early this morning after milking. I been bringing my Jerseys over here for the past week or so. What with the pond being here, there's plenty of water and I figured they might as well clear the long grass on this pasture 'fore the frost comes and kills it. I had just finished herding them over here and left them on that far hill, and Max and me was headed down the hill towards the pond when we spied her. First, I thought it was just the way the sun was hitting the water, or a bit of left over fog, but as we got closer, I could see that it wasn't my imagination" Walter explained slowly.

"Max?" Emma inquired.

"My dog. Best damn farm dog in the county. Nobody herds like Max," Walter replied proudly, a half smile catching the side of his mouth.

"Then what? How close did you get to the edge of the pond? Did you try to fish her out?" Emma asked intently, the expression in her eyes remote as she listened to Walter's account.

"We got as far as the tree and then stopped. It was a might obvious that she was long dead, so I didn't see any use in trying that mouth to mouth stuff. Besides, it seemed kinda odd, her being here in my pond in her nightgown, so I figured I'd best call you."

"So, neither you nor the dog went any closer to the bank than the tree?" Emma clarified, watching as Walter rolled his rather prominent upper lip so that it was touching the tip of his nose. She remembered watching him perform similar feats in Mr. Smith's Earth Science class her freshman year in high school. It always appeared to be a trick of concentration for him, the same way other people bit their lip or furrowed their brow.

"Nope." He answered finally, his reply typically New England. Short, sweet, and to the point.

"And there was no car or bike anywhere nearby in which she could have gotten here?"

"Nope, nothing."

"Ruby said that you thought it might be Karen Medford? Any reason in particular that you said that?" Emma probed, her voice casual.

"Well, same size, same hair, and their place is just over the hill, so it seemed like as good a guess as any," the farmer answered just as casually.

"Ok, Walter, I think I have all I need for now. I'm afraid that we'll need to seal off your pasture, at least for today. I'll get the boys to tape off the end of the drive and the immediate scene. Would it be possible for you to take the cows in early today? I know they don't usually go in yet, but I don't want to risk having them wander down and contaminate the scene," the Sheriff queried, only the polite tone of her voice making the statement a request.

"Sure, no problem, Emma. I'll just head back to the house and pick up Max and we'll have 'em out of here in a jiffy," Walter assured her, turning to make his way over to the old Chevy pickup. Climbing in, he made a U-turn in the adjacent grass and headed back up the narrow path, neatly circumventing Emma's patrol car as he headed back towards the main road.

Turning finally to survey the scene, Emma appeared deep in thought. Neither of her deputies had moved during her interview with Whittington, both standing somewhat diffidently to the side as their chief took charge of the situation.

Abruptly, Emma turned to them and asked, "Did you contact Doc Rogers?"

Able Rogers was the county coroner, a local GP who served as the medical examiner for Storybrooke. Emma had known him all her life and trusted his judgment. Too often general practitioners took the job with an overachiever's kind of seriousness, not content to merely discover the forensic evidence, but throwing themselves into the role of investigator. Fortunately, Doc Rogers was quite content to do his part of the job and leave her peaceably to hers, something for which Emma was humbly appreciative.

"Ruby was trying to raise him. His wife said he was out fly fishin' somewhere. Ruby sent Graham out to find him," Tom "Happy" Baker replied nervously.

Happy, a recent graduate of Central Maine Community College, had been a deputy just two short months and Emma was willing to wager a great deal that this was the very first dead body he had ever seen. His round face was barely visible under the brim of his hat, but Emma could just make out the thin layer of sweat that had nothing to do with the temperature. He kept glancing uneasily in the direction of the pond, as if his mind required the continual confirmation that the ghastly figure in white wasn't a figment of his imagination.

"Get on the radio and see if she's managed to find him yet. I'd prefer to have him here before we pull her out. And tell Ruby to send Graham out here with the crime scene kit once he's found Doc Rogers. I notice that neither of you thought to bring it, did you?" Emma told them briskly, her eyes canvassing the area, mentally measuring the distance, as the crow flies, from the Medford house, a ramshackle brown farmhouse that sat on the other side of the hill to her right.

Walter had said there was no car, no other means of transportation evident, so either Karen Medford walked through the thin stand of trees that separated the Whittington's pasture from the few acres of Medford land, hiked across the rumpled layer of mucky soil and grass to the pond, all the while wearing a long, flowing white nightgown, or someone had brought her here.

The narrow path that Emma had traversed was the only way to get to the pond without physically trudging across the boggy ground. The surrounding fields were simply too soft, left muddy and cumbersome by the four days of rain they had had the previous week. Anyone attempting to drive across the pasture would still be there, mired down in the muck as surely as if it had been quicksand.

Unfortunately, the wide, heavy tires on Walter's pickup, along with the tires of her two well-intentioned, but inexperienced, deputies had obliterated any other tracks that might have been left. At some point, a refresher course in basic crime scene procedures appeared in order.

Happy moved quickly at Emma's words, outmaneuvering his comrade, Leroy Franklin, who was left standing beside the Sheriff. As Baker disappeared inside his vehicle, Franklin, a three year veteran of the Sheriff's department, schluffed his shoes against the patch of rocky soil beneath his feet.

"We haven't touched anything, Chief," he assured her, his voice a tad defensive as the late morning sun behind him threw his face into shadow under the wide brim of his hat.

"Glad to hear it, Leroy," Emma answered evenly. "Although, for future reference, next time, park your patrol car at more of a distance from the actual crime scene. That way, if there are any tracks that might have been left by, say a criminal, you don't drive over them and destroy valuable evidence."

"Sorry, Sheriff," Leroy replied gruffly. "We didn't think about that. Does that mean that you think somebody put her there?"

"I sincerely hope not, Leroy. I sincerely hope not," Emma pronounced wearily.


	3. Chapter 2

A/N: This chapter contains descriptions (mild) of a dead body and discussion of domestic violence and abuse, as well as suicide. If these are triggers for you, please consider skipping this section. Thanks to everyone who has kindly commented, followed, etc. I truly appreciate the kind support. This will be a very slow burn SQ but I promise to get there. I really am interested in writing a murder mystery as well as a romance, so I hope you'll stick it out with me! Thanks, Few

**Chapter Two**

If there was one thing that Regina Mills hated, it was not being the first person to know what was happening in _her_ town. As mayor, she kept a tight grip on the reins, unwilling to or-as Emma Swan had impudently suggested-incapable of allowing the people who worked for her to simply do their jobs without her constant, and often aggressive, oversight. It wasn't that Regina felt that everyone who worked for the city was incompetent, although she had made it abundantly clear that she felt that the percentage who were incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time was ridiculously high. It was simply that she was the mayor and in the end, as Truman had alluded, the 'buck' stopped at her desk. The citizens of Storybrooke had wisely elected her and she saw no reason to give the well-being of the town any less care and attention than she did her twelve year old son, Henry.

Still, the stunningly high level of ineptitude with which she was faced on a daily basis left Regina with a perpetual scowl etched between shapely brows. Today had been no exception. A meeting of the town council had been excruciatingly tedious and Regina had not even had the distraction of watching Emma Swan attempt to remain awake during the lengthy discussion of bond ratings and a new parking lot for the high school, a discussion that left the mayor herself covering her mouth with her hand to hide the more than occasional yawn. Though Regina would rather drive toothpicks under her own fingernails than admit it, the absence of Sheriff Swan, with her smirking face, red leather jacket, and accompanying swagger, had left the mayor rather pensive. Dammit, she missed the woman.

Well, perhaps missed was a strong word. Noted her absence. That was better. It wasn't as if she liked Sheriff Swan. The woman was rude, arrogant, pushy, stubborn, and insufferably smug. She was perpetually late with her monthly reports. Actually, she was perpetually late, period. She also argued with every proposal, every suggestion that Regina made regarding the police department. Regarding anything, actually. And yet, given the sycophantic behavior of most of the town's residents towards their mayor, Regina couldn't help but harbor a small, albeit grudging amount of respect for the sheriff. Regina had to admit, a sporadically entertaining frenemy was better than nothing at all.

Regina had managed over the past two years to convince herself that her feelings- if they even could be dignified as such-for the sheriff were simply the normal, basic response to the thrill of a worthy opponent. That the almost visceral joy she experienced from verbally jousting with the Sheriff had nothing to do with latent sexual attraction or unresolved sexual tension, or whatever other asinine name was regularly assigned by amateur television shrinks to such relationships. She simply liked arguing with the woman. It amused her to watch the sheriff's cheeks flush with anger, to see that spark of irritation and frustration light those green eyes. That was all.

If, in the midst of a good sparring match, her heart raced a bit more and her skin flushed a tad more than a disagreement between sheriff and mayor warranted, Regina dismissed it. If she found herself invading the sheriff's personal space more than would be considered polite, she simply chalked it up to good intimidation tactics (even if the subject of said tactics was extremely disinclined to be intimidated and, instead of retreating, stepped even closer.) Regina had discovered that troublesome emotions, like troublesome people, generally went away if ignored long enough.

Unfortunately, troublesome feelings for a very troublesome person were a little bit harder to handle. Missing said troublesome person's presence when she was out of town? Well, that was unacceptable. Period.

If she had only known that what had begun as merely an irritating day would progress to an infuriating one. Striding down Main Street, the mayor decided that perhaps a latte would take the edge off her disgust at herself for missing that annoying woman. Entering Granny's Diner, Regina ignored the stares and sudden lull in conversation that always marked her entrance. After a moment, the noise level returned to normal and Regina made her way to the counter, none too patient at having to wait for her latte. Regina made it a point not to engage in gossip, finding the lives of most of the citizens of Storybrooke far too pedestrian and banal to merit her interest. Discussions that revolved around lobster traps, farm equipment, and sports teams held no appeal and so Regina had learned to tune out the ever-present hum of conversation that pervaded the diner. Today, however, one conversation caught her attention.

Standing at the counter of Granny's, snatches of the conversation snagged along her consciousness like wet leaves against a fence. With each sentence she overheard, Regina's annoyance grew exponentially. The harsh resonance of the words 'dead body floating in the pond' and 'possible suicide' reduced the rest of the diner noise to a distant hum. The diner's proprietor, Eugenia "Granny" Lucas and Mary Margaret Blanchard, Henry's elementary school teacher and the mother of the often aggravating Sheriff Swan, were huddled over the edge of the Formica counter. Their not-so-whispered conversation reached her in short ratchets of words, like machine-gun bursts, staccato and scattered.

For a split second Regina considered interrupting and demanding information, but angrily dismissed the notion. Asking that simpering idiot Mary Margaret Blanchard to explain herself would reveal that she, _the mayor_, had not been informed and thus knew nothing. Leaving herself open to ridicule was not going to happen. Ever. Jaw clenched, coffee forgotten, Regina spun on her heels. Storming out the restaurant, she yanked her phone from her purse. Her index finger jabbed hard against the screen. Dark brows drawn together, her full lips curled into a snarl. When she was done with Emma Swan there just might be more than one death to investigate.

As the phone began to ring, Regina wondered how good the dear Sheriff would be at solving her own murder.

_SQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQ_

The florescent yellow of the crime scene tape seemed to meld with the brilliant hues of the waning autumn landscape, standing out sharply against the green of the pasture and the silver strip of county road. The twin ruts of dirt that served as the access way to the meadow had been sealed off, as had the pond, a thin ribbon of tape, attached to metal rods, forming a crude fence around the perimeter of the swimming hole.

Emma had put Leroy and Happy, along with two highway patrol officers who had come to assist with the scene, to work searching the area from the Medford farm to the pond. If Karen Medford had walked across the sodden ground from her parent's farm last night, she would have left at least a couple sets of usable prints behind.

A third Sheriff's car containing Graham Humbert and the crime scene kit pulled up along the edge of the road. Humbert, his lanky frame throwing a long shadow on the dirt path, trudged up the lane towards Emma, laden down with two large cases containing the crime scene equipment

Graham Humbert was Emma's most experienced deputy, having been with the department long before Emma had returned to Storybrooke from Boston. Graham had served as an MP in the early days of the invasion of Afghanistan. He had served his four years and returned to his hometown, his job with the Sheriff's department allowing him to slowly ease himself back into the world, not an easy task in a country that had not always welcomed home the sons it sent to war.

Emma knew that she could trust him implicitly. There was little that surprised or shocked Graham, and yet, despite the horrors he had witnessed, or maybe because of them, he treated fellow officers and criminals alike with the same gentle courtesy, his voice quiet, his eyes holding the forgiveness of one too used to the vagaries and unkindness of the world to judge.

Emma called loudly across the expanse of ground to Happy to join them. He ran as quickly as he could across the mucky field to where she and Graham were unpacking the equipment.

"Take the camera and get as many shots as you can of the pond and the surrounding scene, all right? I want everything, the ground, the water, the tree, with as many angles of the body as you can take," Emma directed succinctly. She knew that Baker was still uncomfortable with the body, but if he was going to make it as a law enforcement officer, he needed to get over this natural squeamishness.

Happy Baker nodded nervously, taking the camera from Deputy Humbert without meeting his eye. Graham had been serving as a mentor to him, trying to teach him all the things about police work that they hadn't taught him in his criminal justice classes, and he desperately did not want to disappoint the older man. Squaring his shoulders, Baker moved off to complete his task.

"He'll be fine," Graham assured, aware that Emma had some doubts about their newest recruit.

"If he's not, then you get to interview and hire the next one. I'd rather have my toenails pulled out, one by one, then go through that process again," the Sheriff answered dryly. Watching as Baker began to photograph the scene, they both fell quiet.

Graham stood silently at the edge of the tape, his gaze taking in the entire scene at a glance. Emma saw him shake his head slowly in resignation, his expression as lugubrious as a sad basset hound.

"Think it's the Medford girl?" He asked Emma, the hoarseness of his voice audible evidence of the pack of Pall Malls that peeked out of the edge of his jacket pocket.

"Walter seems to think so, and it would make sense given the proximity of the farms. I don't remember ever running across Karen Medford. Did you ever have any dealings with her or her family?" Emma answered absently, watching as Franklin and the others slowly made their way across the muddy field, heads down as they carefully scanned the ground in front of them.

"Yeah. Mike Medford is a real son-of-a-bitch. Heavy drinker. His father left him about sixty-five acres, but Mike's managed to sell off all but two or three. Women and whiskey, and not necessarily in that order. We had a couple complaints from one of his girlfriends about five years ago. She was shacked up with him, and they'd both get drunk and start whaling on each other.

"She stuck it out for a few months then hightailed it. The two girls were only around twelve and ten at the time. We sent Children's Services out there, but I don't know as much came of it. Far as I know, he never hit the kids. Truth is, I don't think that they ever registered on his radar enough for him to bother. He just ignored them and let them fend for themselves. Karen must be around seventeen now," Graham explained slowly, his statements punctuated now and then by a thin puff of cigarette smoke that slipped out with his words.

"What happened to the wife?" Emma asked in curiosity. There was a seven or eight year gap in her knowledge of the goings on in the area while she had been living in Boston. Fortunately, between Graham and Ruby, her dispatcher, Emma could count on little that occurred in the county being missed or forgotten.

"Far as we could tell, she just took off one day. Mike made a big to do about it. Came in and gave your Dad a big line about how his wife was missing and that she must have been kidnapped. You could smell the whiskey on the idiot from twenty yards.

"Your Dad had us drive him home and check into it, but looked to us like she just got tired of it and him and the kids and just left. Felt real sorry for the kids myself. Must feel like shit to have your Mom just walk out on you like that. I see Karen around town now every once in a blue moon. I think she got a job down at the McDonalds out by the old water plant," Graham stated sadly, taking a small tin out his pants pocket and crushing the remnants of the cigarette butt out into it.

Emma started to ask what her father had thought about the case, but she was forestalled by the loud puttering sound of a bad muffler as Doc Rogers' old Buick station wagon slid into the spot at the edge of the road, right behind Humbert's patrol car. The M.E. emerged from the station wagon, an ancient and decrepit old cap resting atop his thinning hair, several long fishing poles protruding from the open back window of the wagon.

Raising a hand to wave in Emma's direction, she knew it wasn't so much a greeting as an exhortation to be patient. Even from the distance of the road, Doc must have been able to see that Emma was tense and irritated, a frown marring the line of her forehead as she followed his progress, squinting into the sun as she watched him slowly make his way towards the pond, his black medical bag clutched in his hand.

"Now, don't get your panties in a wad, Emma. I came as soon as I could get here. I was thigh deep in the Kennebec when Graham here found me. I had to get out, get out of those damn waders, find where I left my damn car, so don't be giving me that look," Doc grumbled as he came within speaking distance, clearly intent on firing the first shot, before Emma had the chance to complain. "I'm not a spring chicken anymore. You need to learn to have more respect for your elders, young lady."

"I didn't say anything," Emma protested, her face a bit outraged as she gazed at the doctor.

"Not yet, but you were going to, I could tell. You had that look, that same look your mother gets when she busts in on one of our poker games and informs your father that it's after midnight and if he isn't home in ten minutes he'll find himself sleeping in his car again," the old man explained, out of breath as he finally came abreast of where Emma stood with Graham.

"I don't suppose that the fact that you've been fishing out of season registers here at all, does it? Or the fact that as the Sheriff, I should simply turn you over to the Game Warden?" Emma fumed at him, her eyebrows nearly at her hairline as he calmly made his way past her to stare at the figure still floating in the pond.

"Nope," he replied succinctly. "You should actually be glad I was fishing. Gonna need those waders to get her out of there. Give an old fella a break and send one of your deputies down to get them out of the wagon, will you, Emma? I'm too old to walk all the way down there and back again."

A faint smile creasing the wrinkles along the side of his mouth, Humbert spoke up before Emma could respond.

"I'll get 'em for you, Doc."

"Thanks, Graham," the doctor nodded.

"Sad business, this. Are you thinking she got here on her own or that somebody brought her here?" Doc asked, turning from his study of the pond to meet Emma's still irate gaze.

"I don't know," Emma answered grudgingly, still annoyed. Doc Rogers was one of her parents' best friends. As such, he had known her all of her life, a fact which Emma firmly believed made him feel entitled to treat her like the six year old who used to sit on his lap while he and her father played cards and swapped stories, and not as the mature, thirty year old Sheriff of the county.

"I've got the boys searching the field for footprints. Unfortunately, between Happy and Leroy and Walter, they managed to drive over any tracks that might have been left in the dirt. We've already been over the area right around the pond and didn't find anything. Of course, that section of ground is so waterlogged that as soon as you step the water seeps into the print and makes it useless. There's a note of some sort tacked to the tree, but I wanted to leave it there till we got all the photos taken. Baker's just finishing up."

"I take it that the girl's father hasn't come looking for her?" Doc inquired, his voice somewhat muffled as he bent over to get a better view of the body from a lower angle.

"No. At first, I thought it was quite odd, but since talking to Graham and hearing his take on the family, it doesn't seem surprising. Apparently, Mike Medford isn't what you might call a 'hands on parent'," Emma responded.

"Not unless it was the back of his hand. I recall many a time that Cheri, Karen's mother, came to my office with one bruise or cut or another. Bastard broke her arm once, if I remember correctly," the doctor mused, his expression full of distaste at the memory.

"Graham doesn't seem to think that Medford hit his daughters, though. Ironically for them, he apparently didn't care enough to abuse them," Emma supplied, her own face grim at the thought of what life must have been like growing up in the Medford household.

Staring at the body floating so placidly in the shallow water, Emma felt an almost anesthetic numbness continue its slide over her mind. Her body's own protective shielding, it had been a part of her for as long as she could remember. For most of her life, especially in her early years on the job, she had been accused of being cold, an unfeeling automaton, incapable of grief or empathy.

Few people had understood that her outward appearance of dispassion and indifference to death or the suffering of others was her mind's natural defense against all the things with which it couldn't cope. It had never been that she didn't care, but that she cared so deeply that part of her would simply shut down, like an electrical breaker overloading and switching off.

Doc surreptitiously watched Emma's face as she gazed stoically at the girl's body. He had known her for all the years of her life. He had been in attendance at her first birthday and at her latest, this past September, and he had witnessed most of the events that had fallen between, and yet, most of the time, she was a stranger to him.

Her father was one of his best friends, an amiable and beloved companion. David Nolan had served as the Sheriff of Storybrooke for nearly twenty years, until he'd retired just three short years ago. David was a charming, sociable man, one quick with a joke, prone to flashes of temper and grand gestures of generosity. Her mother, Mary Margaret, seemed at times to comprise the energy of ten people, her mind and body never still, always moving, always talking, her face always creased with a wide grin. Out of these two zestful souls had come a child possessed of such an inner stillness, that Doc often wondered, studying her as he was now, what thoughts were cloistered behind those clear green eyes. It wasn't that Emma wasn't a charming woman, she was. Intelligent, witty, kind, even warm on occasion.

Doc had seen her angry, had seen her touchingly gentle with a wounded animal or a wounded child. He knew she was inclined to fits of melancholy. On a warm summers night, the strains of sad melodies often poured forth into the Maine air from the open, candlelit windows of her small house. And yet, there was always something missing, something she held in reserve. It wasn't so much a feeling of serenity, as a impression of concealment, of the concentrated repression of some powerful force, one that she was unable or unwilling to handle or reveal.

His inner musings were interrupted as Graham returned to the scene carrying the heavy green rubber waders that Rogers used for fishing, a thin sheen of water still evident on the outside.

"Here you go, Doc," Graham offered, clearly unconcerned that the waders had left a large wet spot across the front of his crisply ironed uniform shirt. "Want me to do the honors, or do you want to do it yourself?"

"I may as well do it. My socks are already soaked through, must be a leak in the damn things somewhere. No sense in both of us going through the day with wet feet," Rogers replied, bending over to remove first one shoe, then the other, revealing what had obviously been white athletic socks at one time but were now gray and sodden.

"I guess the idea of just changing into clean socks is a foreign concept?" Emma murmured, shaking her head in wonder.

Rogers merely glared at her, busying himself with trying to shake some of the excess water from the heavy rubber. As the doctor stepped into the waders, Franklin, Baker, and the two highway patrolmen joined the group, watching with fascination as the old man finally managed to pull the wet rubber up around his hips, slipping the suspenders over bony shoulders.

"Ready?" Emma asked, bending and removing the body bag from the other crime scene case. Rogers nodded his head in assent.

The group followed silently as Rogers and the Sheriff lead the way to the far edge of the pond where the body had lodged amid the ferns. Reaching out a hand to steady the old man, Emma helped him as he slowly eased himself into the shallow water of the pond.

"Bottom's mucky as hell," he pronounced, his movements awkward as he tried to stir up as little of the silt as possible, stepping ponderously closer to the floating figure in white. "Unzip the body bag and lay it down like a tarp on the bank there under the tree. I'll get her untangled and then push her towards you. Try and get up under her arms while I get her legs and we'll lay her on the bank, face down on the bag. I want to take a look at her back first."

Unzipping the bag fully, Emma laid it out on the layer of dried leaves at the edge of the bank closest to the tree.

Graham Humbert quickly removed both shoes and socks and rolled the cuffs of his pants as far up his leg as they would go. He stepped into the water to his ankles, waiting patiently as Rogers reached the girl's side and as gently as possible, freed her hair from the tangle of weeds. The doctor grabbed hold of a handful of white cotton, pulling and pushing the body towards the muddy bank.

"I've got one of those grappler hooks in my trunk," offered Leroy Franklin, as he watched the doctor struggle with moving the waterlogged body.

"She's not a golf ball or a trout, you damn fool. She's somebody's child," Doc responded harshly, glowering up at Franklin through heavy brows. "If you want to be of some help then bring my bag over here and keep your mouth shut."

"I just thought...," Franklin began to protest, cut short by his chief's quiet voice.

"Leroy, get the bag, all right? And then call Ruby and ask her to get the ambulance service over here as soon as possible."

"Sure, chief," Leroy muttered, glancing suspiciously at his fellow officers to see if they were laughing at his public embarrassment. None of them met his eyes as he walked as quickly as he could to where Doc's bag sat on the ground on the opposite side of the pond. Without another word, he carried the bag over, handing it to Emma and then turned to cross the wet field to his patrol car.

Doc had finally maneuvered the body to within Graham's reach. Taking another step into the water, Graham slid his arms up under the girl, hooking his arms with hers and gently lifting her, as Doc grabbed hold of her legs and moved haltingly up onto the bank. Clearly out of breath, the doctor huffed as they laid the body down as gently as they could on the bag, which rested on the litter of dried leaves, in the shadow of the maple.

Emma stood back and observed as Rogers began to go over the body. Baker looked away, an expression of sadness and distaste on his young countenance, as the medical examiner gingerly raised the soaking white nightgown up over the girls legs and buttocks, exposing the pasty whiteness of her skin.

"No lividity on her back or legs, so if she was moved here postmortem, she was transported on her stomach. There are no obvious wounds or punctures, no bruising," Rogers reported, his hands and eyes moving expertly over the body. "Graham, get hold of her again and let's roll her."

Carefully, the two men turned the body, rolling her onto her back, her face visible for the first time.

Despite the mottled, waterlogged skin, her features were still quite clear. Gazing wordlessly down at her, Emma could see that she couldn't be more than seventeen or eighteen, her face thin and still unformed, like a dress she hadn't quite managed to grow into yet. Her dirty blonde hair had been long and curly, tangled now into a sodden mass.

"Is it Karen Medford?" Emma asked, not raising her eyes from the pathetic figure below her.

"Yeah, it's her," Graham answered quietly.

For a few minutes, none of them spoke. Finally, Doc bent to remove his instruments from his bag, taking out the thermometer and a short scalpel. As he made a small incision in the girl's abdomen, and inserted the thermometer in her liver, Emma turned and walked a short distance up the hill, a deep sigh slowly escaping her throat.

There was a surrealness to the moment that hit her with the force of a freight train, slamming into her chest. Her eyes took in the scene as if from a great distance. The lush green valley lay spread out around her, a patchwork quilt of green and brown, of gold and muted orange, dotted here and there with the white of a house or the brittle red of a barn.

She could smell the rich soil, the tangy scent of the grass and the damper, musty smell of the pond that lay below her. The pleasant breeze urged the lingering leaves of the solitary maple to tell their secrets, as it whispered conspiratorially through their ranks.

Against the perfection of the scene, the body of the girl lay, exposed and horribly dead, on the blanket of fallen leaves, shredding the flawless picture like the slash of a razor across the canvas. The other bodies that Emma had seen in her career had been found amid squalid surroundings, as if the setting had been intended as a backdrop to reflect the ugliness of death. It made the current tableau doubly obscene. Emma felt as if she were gazing at one of those children's puzzles, the ones titled, _"What is wrong with this picture?"._

"From her body temperature, I'd hazard a guess that she's been dead between eight and ten hours. That would put time of death between twelve-thirty and two-thirty this morning," Rogers voice carried to her, and she looked down the slight incline to see him gazing in her direction, a somewhat puzzled expression on his face.

Clearly waiting for her to speak, her deputies turned to stare as she walked the short distance back down the slope to the tree. Without responding to the unspoken questions of her men, Emma reached out a latex gloved hand and pulled the small red pin from the darkened bark of the maple, freeing the slip of fluttering white paper from its confinement. A mystified frown creased her forehead as she stared down at the note in her hand.

"Emma?" Graham's voice interrupted her contemplation.

Raising her head, Emma's eyes appeared unfocused for a moment. Shaking her head slightly, she answered the inquiry.

"Finish up what you can of the scene. Get soil samples, water samples. Graham, you know what needs to be done. Get the men collecting what we need. Doctor, if you would, get scrapings from under her nails, and when you get her back to the morgue, I need a rape kit and, of course, a full autopsy," she intoned calmly, no hint of emotion in her voice.

"Any help from the note?" Doc asked, nodding towards the piece of paper she still held in her hand.

"Not really," Emma replied resignedly. She had been hoping that the slip of paper would hold the answers to all the questions surrounding Karen Medford's death. Instead, it simply provided more questions. "Give me one of those evidence bags to put it in, will you?"

"All right, let's get this over with. The longer we take, the more gawkers we're going to get, so let's be efficient, shall we? I'd prefer not to have this turn into a circus," Emma urged, slipping the note into a small plastic baggie, her gaze focusing down the field to the road where a number of people had already begun to gather, their cars and trucks lining the narrow strip of highway. "Graham, you're in charge. I'm going to drive over to the Medford place and break the news to her father. I'll meet you back at the morgue."

"I'd be more than willing to tell him for you, Emma," Graham offered, as he attempted to assess Emma's mood.

This was the first mysterious death they had dealt with, so he had no real basis to judge her response. He knew that she had handled a number of homicides in Boston, so this clearly was not new to her. Still, he found it difficult to put his finger on the precise change in her, only knowing that there was one.

Emma met his gaze for a moment, her eyes as clear as the autumn sky above them. Despite their clarity, Graham realized that he would have better luck trying to peer down through the muddy water of the pond and see the bottom than he would reading the thoughts and emotions sheltered behind that unwavering stare.

"Thanks, Graham, but I'll do it. I'd like to meet Michael Medford and form my own impressions of what he does or doesn't know. If you would, just get the boys to complete the crime scene procedures, and for heaven's sake, have them finish up searching the field for footprints. I want to be certain of something, even if it is only of how she didn't get here," Emma replied calmly, a slight turning up of the corners of her mouth a faint acknowledgment of his offer.

"Will do, Emma," Graham answered.

He watched as she made her way down the dirt lane to where her Sheriff's car sat at the end of the drive, just on the other side of the crime scene tape. She had just stooped to slip under the fluorescent yellow tape when a shadow fell across the ground in front of her.

"Sheriff! What can you tell me about the body? Have you identified it? Is there any sign of foul play?" Sidney Glass, reporter for the local paper, stepped into Emma's path, notepad in hand.

Glass was another local boy who had returned to the fold, having left the valley years before to pursue a journalism career that never got any farther than the features section at the Portland Press-Herald. He had eventually returned home, convinced that it was professional jealousies and private grievances that had stalled his dreams of a Pulitzer.

He was well past the age of cub reporter now, and his job consisted mainly of City council meetings, the occasional interview with a local sports hero, and schmaltzy public interest stories. They also seemed to include stalking the mayor-all in the name of a vigilant press, of course-a predilection that bothered the sheriff immensely. There was something about Sidney's smarmy, ass-kissing demeanor around Regina that made Emma's skin crawl. And from the expression of distaste on Regina's face whenever Sidney cornered her after a council meeting, Emma was pretty certain that the mayor felt the same. Still, given his penchant for overwrought prose and misleading headlines, the thought of an actual unidentified body in a pond must have been almost more than Sidney could have ever imagined.

"Sidney, you know very well I can't tell you anything right now. I promise, as soon as we get the scene processed and Doc Rogers has an opportunity to examine the body, I will hold a press conference and give you all the information I can, ok?" Emma explained patiently.

"When will that be? I have an obligation to our readers to provide them with all the information I can, as soon as possible," Sidney enthused, moving slightly to the left as Emma tried to edge around him. "Can you confirm that the body is a local girl? Did she commit suicide or do you suspect foul play?"

"As I just said, I can't divulge any of that information right now, Sidney," the Sheriff stated, her voice a little less patient. "Now, if you would be so kind as to get out of my way, I have work to do."

"If it was suicide, do you think that drugs were involved? Were there any markings or symbols around that would suggest a cult of some sort?" Glass continued, clearly unfazed by the look of growing annoyance stealing across Emma's face as he again stepped into the Sheriff's path as she attempted to reach her car

"Tell me, Sidney, which part of get out of my way are you getting caught up on here?" Emma asked him, her voice ominous, a definite flash of extreme irritation in her eyes. "Move. Now."

"Sure, Emma, sure," Sidney responded, stepping quickly out of Emma's way. The reporter glanced to his right, to where several locals had gathered, their curiosity aroused by the commotion in Walter Whittington's field. A couple of the younger men snickered at Emma's words, bringing a rush of blood to Sidney's cheeks.

"You be sure to keep me informed, Sheriff Swan. The people have a right to know if their children are at risk from God knows what kinds of elements. If I sense any stonewalling on your part, I will share my concerns with Mayor Mills and I will not hesitate to bring it to the public's attention," Sidney retorted to Emma's back, his voice loud in a show of bravado.

"I'm sure that both the mayor and the public feel much safer knowing you're on the job, Sidney," Emma tossed back at him, the seeming sincerity of her tone and expression making the comment all the more humiliating, as a good many of the spectators lining the tape line laughed aloud at her comment.

Seeing the flush spread further across the reporter's face, Emma was tempted to apologize. It had already been a long day and patience had never been one of her virtues, even at the best of moments. She knew she shouldn't have taken it out on Glass, but the man was a pain in the ass. Besides, if he really was the tough, experienced newshound that he purported to be, then he must have developed a hide thick enough to withstand a few sarcastic remarks from police officials.

Pushing the incident aside, Emma resumed the short trek to her car. Sliding into the driver's seat, Emma wearily ran her fingers through her thick blonde hair. Of all of the duties that fell under her job description, informing a family member that their loved one had died was the most horrendous. When the prospect of murder came into play, things became even more difficult.

It had been a blessed three years since she had been forced to perform that particular duty. At times, in the past, the immense display of grief had been almost too much to bear. The emotions of the families had coated her mind and soul like a California mudslide, filling her nose and mouth until she felt as though she would drown, pulled under by the thick morass.

Emma had no doubt that a grand display of emotion would greet her today. From what Graham had told her, the chances of finding Mike Medford sober were pretty slim. Drunks were notoriously melodramatic, and given the ruckus that Medford had raised when his wife left him, Emma felt fairly certain that the news of his daughter's death would reduce that previous spectacle to little more than a minor tantrum. The fact that in life Medford had, at best, ignored the girl, and at worst, used her for a punching bag, would not mitigate the show of grief.

Putting the cruiser into reverse, Emma backed out onto the asphalt. As she headed in the direction of the Medford farm, she glanced back in her rear-view mirror. Sidney Glass stood in the middle of the narrow road, watching her drive off, an inscrutable expression on his face. Emma frowned, a feeling of unease settling low in her stomach. Perhaps Glass knew more than he'd let on. The ringing of her cell phone snapped Emma out of her contemplation. Glancing down at the screen, Emma let out a soft groan.

The display read, 'Regina Mills'. Emma silently debated ignoring the call. She could always claim that she was involved in police business and couldn't get away, but she knew from experience that the stubborn mayor would merely keep calling until she answered. Either that or she'd track her down and then they'd have to have what was unquestionably going to be an unpleasant conversation in person, something Emma would really rather avoid as long as possible.

With another long-suffering sigh, Emma pulled over on the graveled expanse on the edge of the road. She slid her thumb across the screen. "Sheriff Swan," she stated briskly, hoping against hope that Regina hadn't already heard about the body; a hope that was ruthlessly crushed with the mayor's first words.

"Exactly when did you think that you might inform the mayor of the town that there has been a suspicious death, Sheriff? Why did I have to overhear it in Granny's from your mother of all people? No doubt your deputy Ruby Lucas wasted no time calling her grandmother and thus, informing the whole town. I realize that there is no way that you learned any sort of professionalism from your father's tenure in office, but I had hoped that anyone with even a modicum of common courtesy would have thought to call and inform the town's mayor about a dead body! Do you have any idea what this kind of bad publicity could do to our revenues during leaf season?! "

As she listened to the low hiss of Regina's voice in her ear, knowing from experience that the mayor's diatribe would continue unabated for several more minutes, Emma sincerely wished she'd just stayed in Portland. Finally, as Regina launched into another series of attacks on her own character and that of her deputies, Emma couldn't take any more.

"Jesus Christ, Regina! Listen to yourself! A girl is dead. A seventeen year old girl. Somehow I think that's a little more important than tourists and money and fucking leaves!" Emma exploded, her fingers white as she gripped the steering wheel. "Now I am on my way to tell this girl's father that she's dead. After that I will be heading over to the morgue to see what Doc has discovered from examining the body. If you'd like to meet me there, I will be happy to give you all the information I have. In the meantime, why don't you stop for two fucking seconds and imagine that the body was Henry and how you'd feel if the mayor of your town was more concerned with revenue than your child's death."

Emma didn't wait for a reply, gently pressing the end button on the phone, all her rage dissipated. Bringing Henry into it had been a cheap shot, but she'd needed to make Regina stop ranting and listen. Steeling herself once again, Emma slid the car back into drive and pulled back onto the road, the short half a mile to the Medford house one of the longest drives of her life.


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N: A thousand apologies for the long delay in updating this! I ended up with bronchitis and then the end of the semester came along and I had a million papers to grade and then graduation…so. I promise to update much more frequently now that my summer is a little less hectic. Here's chapter three. Hoping to get chapter four done by this time next week. Fingers crossed. Thanks for being patient! Few**

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**Chapter Three**

The smell of disinfectant assaulted Emma's senses as she stepped from the damp autumn air into the basement corridor of the hospital. Storybrooke was close enough to Maine Medical or Mercy Hospital that most of the locals drove the short distance down to Portland for most of their major health care needs. However, Storybrooke had its own small hospital, part of it used as an emergency room and part for rehabilitation care. In the basement, as with most hospitals, several rooms had been utilized as a morgue and as exam rooms for the M.E.

The tiled floor was yellowed with age and years of old wax. The scuff marks of generations of morgue technicians and the long streaks of black left in the wake of the thick rubber wheels of countless gurneys were sealed forever into the layers of wax, strata upon strata of weary footprints and the tracks left behind by suddenly aborted dreams. Emma could hear the steady rhythm of her own steps as the stiff soles of her boots met the hard plastic, the unhurried _click, click, click_ echoing like the slow beat of a funeral drum in the empty hallway.

She stopped outside the double swinging doors of the morgue, drawing in deep breaths. She tried to push aside the torrent of memories that swam up through her mind: elusive, eel-like creatures that slithered around the edges of her consciousness. Some of them darted too quickly for her to grasp in the net, leaving in their wake vestiges of memory, still photographs of cold bodies on cold steel gurneys.

With a visible shake of her head, Emma pushed open the doors, stepping into the exam room. Doc Rogers sat on a small stool by one of the side tables, a mass of papers spread out over its surface in what Emma presumed was some form of organized chaos. The doctor was intently scribbling away, not even glancing up as she made her way over to stand at the edge of the steel table, her hand coming up to rest on the frigid surface. Neither of them spoke, the only sounds in the room the heavy, somewhat labored breathing of the old doctor and the scratching of the pen against the paper.

At length Emma spoke, her voice seeming to take on a metallic echo as it bounced off the thick walls of the morgue.

"You sound like an old steam engine trying to make it up Mt. Washington. My mother told you years ago that those disgusting old two-bit stogies you smoke would be the death of you," Emma stated quietly, a note of reproach coloring her tone.

"Yes, well, your mother is a kind, loving woman with a tongue like an asp, so I never do pay much attention to most of her so-called advice. So just you leave me to my cheap cigars and I'll not mention the numerous beer and liquor bottles that line your recycle bin every week, all right there, Princess?" Doc retorted, never raising his head as he spoke.

He had intentionally used her father's favorite endearment for her, taking a perverse pleasure in the sharp intake of breath that he knew, without glancing up, would be the only indication that his remark had hit home. Sliding his eyes sideways to where Emma's hand rested on top of the table, Rogers could see that she hadn't even tensed as the faint echo of his words faded from the room. Despite myriad failures, Doc doggedly kept trying to elicit a reaction from her. What had begun as a game years ago, was now an unreasoning quest. As far as Doc Rogers could tell, there was only one person who had ever been able to breach the stoic wall that Emma presented to the world. Only one person who could bring a flush of heat to Emma's cheeks and make those green eyes flash with anger. And with something else, something Emma would never willingly acknowledge.

Regina Mills.

Doc had, on numerous occasions, watched the interactions of the two women with fascination and not a little amusement. From the day that Emma had returned home from Boston to run for her retiring father's job as sheriff, she and Regina Mills had been at each other's throats. The five years that separated them in age had kept them out of the other's orbit and, given the vast differences in financial status and education, they had few common acquaintances. Emma's only knowledge of Regina had come from her parents: from her father's tired accounts of the tyrant who had taken up residence in the mayor's office, and her mother's stories of parent-teacher conferences from hell, as the Mayor came in to discuss the shortcomings of the education being provided for her son. Still, these had been enough to color Emma's opinion of Regina. Their first meeting had begun with cool disdain and ended in a shouting match. From that time on, they bickered and wrangled, seemingly unaware that, more often than not, every harsh word, every new feint and jab brought them one step closer to each other, until the next hurled insult was drawn from mingled breath.

It was an established fact, to the minds of most of Storybrooke, that the mayor and the sheriff hated each other. Doc wasn't so sure that was the case.

Doc Rogers had always been fascinated with human nature, and as a country doctor for over forty years, he felt that he had seen more than enough to give him an insight into the human mind and heart. He knew more about the whys and wherefores of his neighbor's and patient's lives than they did themselves. Only this woman, this child he had watched grow, whose ankle he had set, whose picture had adorned the mantle of his own bachelor house, only Emma eluded his understanding, and it troubled him more than he would ever admit, even to himself.

"Well, I doubt you came all the way over here to nag me about smoking, so do you want to know what I found concerning the Medford girl?" Doc muttered a trifle caustically, spinning the stool so that he faced Emma, his thick brows lowered in annoyance.

Meeting his eyes, Emma's lips turned up in the semblance of a professional smile.

"Yes, actually, I would be interested to know. What did you find, Dr. Rogers?" Sheriff Swan inquired politely.

"Not a damn thing," Rogers replied, his mouth just opening again to elaborate when Emma spoke.

"Perhaps you could be a bit more specific than that, Doctor. When you say you found nothing, am I to assume that you mean that you found nothing to indicate foul play or is it that you misplaced the body and therefore literally didn't find anything?" Emma responded, her tone cool, formal, and totally professional.

"Don't get that snotty tone with me, Emma Swan. I'm not one of those Harvard types you used to deal with at Boston General," Rogers snapped back, annoyed with himself for taking the bait as he saw the slight curve touch the corners of her lips. "If you'd give me a minute to finish my thought, I'll tell you exactly what I found."

"Of course, Doctor, please continue," Emma answered, a tiny glint lighting her eyes at the minor act of revenge. Mentioning the beer bottles had been below the belt as far as she was concerned. The fact that Storybrooke was small enough that the contents of her recycle bin and no doubt her garbage as well were a topic of discussion at the Granny's didn't surprise Emma, but it rankled just the same.

"As I was saying, I didn't find anything to indicate any use of force or violence. No bruising, no contusions, no defensive marks, no skin under her nails. She wasn't raped. There's no alcohol in her bloodstream, though as for the rest of the toxicology report, you'll have to wait a week or so, depending on how much speed those slackers down in Portland put into a request from us hicks up here in the boondocks. As far as I can tell, she drowned, plain and simple. Water in the lungs, although as I just said, we'll have to wait on the test results to make sure it's the same water as the pond," the doctor informed her, rummaging through the papers scattered on the table and handing her several sheets covered in his unintelligible script.

Emma only glanced at the pages before setting them down on the end of the table nearest the door, where they would not become mixed up again in the morass of Doc's notes. A puzzled frown pulled her eyebrows down, her eyes narrowed in speculation.

"So, she trudged across a quarter mile of soggy, muddy fields, in a long, flowing white nightgown and threw herself into Walter's cow pond? Wouldn't it have been simpler to have just taken some pills, or slit her wrists, or even taken one of her father's hunting rifles and blown her head off? I mean, why make it so difficult on herself? Surely there are easier and much more efficient ways of committing suicide than drowning oneself in a pasture pond that can't be more than five feet deep?" Emma pondered out loud, moving from the table to pace slowly around the perimeter of the room.

"Probably there are, but you also have to consider the fact that she lived with her father and sister. Maybe she was scared she'd be interrupted or they would stop her from doing it. Maybe it just seemed more dramatic. She was a teenaged girl, for heaven's sake. You may never find out why she did what she did, the way that she did it. If you'll recall, seventeen isn't always the most wonderful age to be, now is it?" Rogers expounded, watching as a flicker of something ghosted across Emma's face at his last words.

"No, seventeen isn't always wonderful. Sometimes, it's downright terrible, if I remember correctly. Add to that her family situation, her mother leaving, her father's alcoholism, and I guess it's an all too common occurrence," Swan replied, her voice quiet.

"Don't suppose you learned anything from the note, did you?" the Doctor inquired.

"Not much. At least, not much that's clear. It's just a word, 'minnorie', which I have never heard. I'm going to have to do some research to see if I can figure out what the hell is means. I asked Karen's father, but the only words he's concerned with are eighty proof. It wasn't even noon and he was drunk, although from the look of him he's probably been like that for days now. I'm not even sure it registered with him that his daughter is dead. He let me go over her room, but a quick search didn't yield anything. I was hoping for a diary, letters, something, but if it's there, it's going to take a more thorough search," Emma answered, her gaze focused on the reflection of the overhead lights on the gleaming steel of the exam table.

"In the meantime, I guess we'll just have to wait and see what the geniuses down in Portland come up with regarding our water samples," Rogers speculated.

"I've sent Graham over to the McDonald's to talk to her boss and the people she worked with, any friends she might have had to see if this girl had been depressed or suicidal. I'll take another pass at the father again tomorrow. I told Leroy to sit on him tonight, so hopefully by morning he'll be at least semi-sober.

"There's also the sister. She may actually prove to be our best source of information. She was at school when I went to the house. I asked Ruby to go and pick her up and explain to her what has happened. God knows, she's better with kids than I am," Emma responded, gathering the pile of papers that Rogers had handed her earlier.

"Poor kid. Bad enough to have her mother take off and be left with that drunk, but now to lose her sister, too. That's a lot for a fifteen year old to handle. Hell, that's a lot for a fifty year old to handle," Rogers intoned solemnly, heavy brows furrowed in concern.

"I'll make sure that Social Services gets over to the house in the morning. Although I can't see as they've been a great deal of help to either of those girls so far. I can't imagine how any reasonable person would think that leaving two adolescent girls in the house with a drunk who beat their mother till she left could possibly be in the best interests of the children, but then, what the hell do I know?" Emma's voice rang harshly against the metal walls of the sterile room.

"Maybe they figured that one parent was better than none. Besides, it isn't like the foster care system 'round here is all that beneficial to a child's well-being," Rogers answered thoughtfully.

"Still. I don't know about you, but I can't help but wonder, if the girls had been taken out of the home and placed somewhere a little less hostile, or even a little more loving, if Karen Medford would have ended up so pathetically dead," Emma rejoined, before turning without another word to walk out. The pneumatic door whooshed quietly behind her.

It had always seemed to her that no other place smelled quite like this. Interwoven, intermingling, redolent odors gave the night air a perfume that was a part of who she was, of all that she had known growing up. The richness of it all, the scent of the dark, craggy soil, the pungent spice of the Douglas firs, and balsam pines, the warm, mellow essence of the hardwoods that lined the jagged margins of the road, had long ago coalesced inside of her, a fragrance as familiar and as essential as a mother's to a tender babe.

The smell of the earth, full of rock and clay, the underlying mustiness of decaying leaves in the marshy areas along the shallow streambed that ran through the meadow behind the house, the moldy scent momentarily seizing the breath from her throat like some shadowy phantom. The dampness in the late autumn night was like a thick roux added to the mixture of scents, melding, coagulating.

Breathing in through her mouth she could taste each individual plant and weed, each shard of granite and clot of clay, each tree and shrub, the tannic of the pines lingering on her palette. The world tasted of earth and stone, of burgeoning mold and the last of the autumn leaves, of river and sky. It tasted of home.

Emma felt a shiver pass over her, one that had as much to do with the events of the day as the deepening chill in the twilight air. Standing on her back porch, she could see the darkening figures of the trees, many stripped bare of leaves, standing out starkly against the almost impossible blue of the early evening sky.

This was her favorite time of day, when light and dark played out their eternal power play, when the shadows lengthened and nothing was as clear as it had been just hours before. There was a lack of certainty, a lack of clarity to the twilight that appealed to Emma.

Absolutes had always seemed perilous to her. There was danger in black and white, in believing that life was, or ever would be, that simple. She preferred the grey, shadowy world that existed in the growing dusk, a world that seemed to her to mirror reality much more precisely than the glaring harshness of day or the soul chilling blackness of midnight.

She had a strong feeling that this indistinct, murky world that settled in around her was the world that Karen Medford knew. Probably knew intimately in fact, poor child. Unfortunately, it appeared that the only escape that Karen had seen from the shadows was in shutting them out forever. Emma shook her head sadly.

At seventeen little is clear, and there's seldom anyone around to tell you that sometimes the only way to survive is to embrace the shadows and find more comfort in them than in the unrelenting light of day. And even if there is that someone, at seventeen, who's going to believe them?

Rubbing her arms against the chill, Emma turned and walked across the back porch, into the house. Regina hadn't shown up at the morgue. After her parting words about Henry, Emma hadn't really expected her to. Still, as much as she was loathe to admit it, she couldn't shake the vague sense of disappointment at not seeing the temperamental brunette. The chime of her phone on the way home had elevated that feeling a little. Regina sent her a curt five word text: "My office. 9 am tomorrow". Maybe she'd bring Regina a latte as a peace offering. Not that it would help, but the gesture couldn't hurt.

With a sigh, Emma pushed thoughts (and the accompanying feelings) of the volatile mayor back into the compartment in her mind allocated for all things messy and unmanageable. Flipping open her laptop, she hoped that she would be able to make some headway in figuring out Karen's enigmatic message, if it was indeed Karen's message. Pulling a bottle of wine off the rack, she deftly opened it, watching with a slightly unfocused stare as the dark red liquid slipped into the fishbowl goblet.

Two hours later, the bottle was half empty and Emma was no further along in her quest than she had been standing by Walter's pond. Emma sat in an overstuffed chair in the far corner of her living room, a leg casually draped over one of the pillow-like arms. The chair was framed on either side by large, casement windows, both thrown open to the now crisp October air, curtains billowing softly in as the night air sought sanctuary in the refuge of Emma's house.

Emma had been searching methodically, attempting to uncover the secret that she knew lay behind the strange word printed so neatly on the slip of paper found at the scene. The light from the antique brass floor lamp behind the chair threw a circle of golden light across the hardwood floor and thick woolen rug. The rest of the house was dark, the light having all but faded from the night sky outside the windows.

To Emma, the light of the lamp was a pool of golden water, warm and insular. Glancing up from her book, it seemed to her that along the edges of the pool, dark and mysterious shapes stole closer to the sustaining warmth, as the night crept stealthily into the house.

"You've had enough wine, Swan," Emma muttered aloud to herself, sighing ruefully at her wayward thoughts. As she spoke, two pinpricks of light swept across the room, as a car pulled into the narrow driveway to the left of the house.

The slamming of a single car door was followed quickly by a steady tread of footsteps across the front porch. The door was unceremoniously thrown open, as a figure loomed in the doorway, pausing for a moment to take in the scene, eyes sweeping across the crowd of books and taking in the half empty bottle of wine.

"You do know how incredibly, mind-bogglingly pathetic you are, don't you?" A distinctly female voice inquired.

The owner of the voice moved at a leisurely pace, crossing the room to drop less than gracefully onto the similarly over-stuffed couch. Adjusting her eyes to peer into the shadows, Emma sighed deeply at the expression of somewhat indulgent disdain on the face of her best friend and dispatcher. It was a look with which she was becoming increasingly familiar, as it had been directed her way with greater and greater frequency in the past few years.

"Emma, its Friday night. Friday night means, go out to dinner, go to a movie, a show, an art exhibit. God knows, I'd even be happy to see you go to a tractor pull. Anything to get you out of the house. But no, here it is, yet another Friday night and what do I find you doing? Sitting alone in the dark, with a laptop, drinking, alone."

"You said alone twice. I heard it the first time, Ruby. Yes, I am alone. Or at least I was alone. Don't you have anything better to do with your Friday night than to come over here and harass me?" Emma asked tonelessly.

"No. Well, actually I do, but on my way there, I figured I would drive by your house and see if you were, as I suspected, sitting here, alone, drinking in the dark. And I was right," Ruby Lucas replied, a self-satisfied smirk turning up the corners of her mouth.

"Don't you have a wife to nag and annoy?" Emma asked resignedly.

"Yes, I do, but you know, when you are as good at something as I am, there's more than enough to spread around," Ruby replied, lifting her legs up to plop her feet on the edge of the coffee table. "Besides, I was nagging you long before I even met Belle. Just because I got married doesn't mean that you somehow get off the hook. Is that why you looked so damn happy at my wedding? You thought that I would be switching my allegiance to another poor sucker and the nagging was finally at an end?"

"The idea did occur to me, although I think that most of the source of my happiness at the wedding was that I would never again have to listen to you drone endlessly on about place settings and menus and who was going to sit where and what kind of ice sculpture you should have. Not to mention having to sit while you tried on every wedding gown on the Eastern seaboard. Plus, if I had to look at one more veil or headpiece or tiara, there was a really good chance that I would commit hari-kari with one of the lovely ornamental butter knives. But imagining that you would now be nagging the shit out of Belle instead of me? Yes, I did find that a source of great joy," Emma answered smugly, tilting back her head to watch Ruby's reaction through her eyelashes.

"Bitch." Ruby stated flatly, her eyes narrowing as the dig hit home.

"Was there some purpose in your visit other than to annoy the hell out of me?" Emma inquired, satisfied by the feeling that some of the balance of power had shifted back to her side of the room.

"Actually, I was worried about you and I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. I mean, considering that this is the first dead body you've had to deal with since you left Boston, I thought that maybe you might be upset or something," Ruby answered, her face a picture of innocent solicitude.

"Oh, please! You just wanted to pump me for information," Emma responded, sitting up suddenly in her chair. The laptop slid to the side and fell to the floor with a resounding thud.

"I did not!" Ruby countered hotly, swinging her feet quickly to the ground as she too sat up straight on the couch. The suggestion, while true in large part, had caused her voice to rise in indignation as well.

"Ruby Lucas, I cannot believe that you can sit there and lie to me like that. I have known you for sixteen years, and I can state categorically, that you are the biggest gossip monger I have ever encountered. Perez Hilton could take lessons from you. I am actually amazed that it took you this long to get over here. I was expecting to see you sitting on my doorstep when I got home. I even bought an extra stromboli at the deli because I knew that you would show up to get all the dirt on that poor girl's death. So do not sit there and try that wounded innocent bullshit with me, okay?" Emma told her, her voice deadpan, one eyebrow nearly touching her hairline.

The ensuing moment of silence stretched on for several minutes as both women attempted to stare down the other. Finally, with a sigh and a resigned smile, Ruby threw herself back against the sofa cushions.

"Fine. Fine. So I was a little curious and I was hoping that you would fill me in a little on what happened. You happy? However, I was worried about you, though God knows why I bother," Ruby said, pique in her tone.

"Because I'm just so damn cute?" Emma asked cheekily.

"Bitch. So are you going to tell me what happened or do I have to go and find Happy and pump him for information? Because, you know that the story I get from him will contain twenty percent truth and eighty percent Happy's version of the truth," Ruby answered, standing to walk into the kitchen, returning with a wineglass, which she filled from the bottle which sat on the end table next to Emma's chair.

"By the way," Ruby asked, again throwing herself onto the couch, barely missing spilling the wine on the fabric of the sofa, "What the hell are you doing?"

"You have the attention span of a gnat," Emma muttered, "Do you want me to start at the beginning or not?"

"By all means, and don't leave out any details, otherwise I won't be able to solve it for you."

"God help me," Emma sighed deeply.


End file.
